We Were Promised Jetpacks: Irritable MajestyIt doesn't take long for the Scottish band's misleadingly named "Quiet Little Voices" to get where it's going: There's little differentiating between the verses (such as they are) and the bombastic choruses, except that the latter explode into something almost impossibly thick, brash and over-the-top.

Friday's Pick

We Were Promised Jetpacks' "Quiet Little Voices" trades any pretense of nuance for four and a half minutes of gloriously anthemic thunder.
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In recent years, Scotland has unleashed an avalanche of rock groups that share a sense of irritable majesty, whether in the form of The Twilight Sad's surly dirges — imagine The Simpsons' Groundskeeper Willie fronting the world's gloomiest band — or the poppy-but-profane likes of Frightened Rabbit and Glasvegas. The latest to harness big buzz, and not just because of its terrific name, is We Were Promised Jetpacks, whose new album (These Four Walls) is a catchy, gritty chunk of guitar-drenched rock bluster.

It doesn't take long for the misleadingly named "Quiet Little Voices" to get where it's going: There's little differentiating between the verses (such as they are) and the bombastic choruses, except that the latter explode into something almost impossibly thick, brash and over-the-top. But the song still builds momentum nicely, abandoning any pretense of nuance in favor of four and a half minutes of gloriously anthemic thunder.